Time for the St. Louis Blues to play road warriors for the rest of November.
They begin a stretch of six of eight to close out the month, including starting a four-game road trip out west against the San Jose Sharks (2-13-1) at 9:30 p.m. (BSMW, ESPN 101.1-FM) at SAP Center on Thursday.
The Blues (8-5-1) are on a bit of a roll, winning a season-high three in a row and five of six (5-1-0) to put themselves right in the thick of the Western Conference standings moving forward.
How have they gotten here? Well, as the great -- and recently inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame -- former coach Ken Hitchcock used to say, the buy-in is there.
"It's a team that you're proud to be a part of," said goalie Jordan Binnington, coming off a 30-save shutout in a 5-0 win against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday. "It's a month or two of working hard and buying in. It's nice to see some results come our way. We're just staying patient and playing together and trusting the system and we're getting rewarded.
"Just playing for each other and playing the system. ... It's good to be a part of."
Indeed.
Although there is still work to do with a power that ranks 30th now (7.7 percent), the goal scoring is up in the past six games. The Blues have outscored their opponents 27-12 in that stretch (4.5 goals per game, ranking third in the league) and allowing just two per game (also third in the league).
"It's great. We're building some confidence," Blues defenseman Torey Krug said. "I think we're trusting our d-zone and a lot of times when you take care of things in the d-zone, it leads to offense, and that's what you're seeing. Guys are committed to playing a full 200 feet."
And that means getting up for a San Jose team that is trending towards setting all sorts of futile records in the NHL.
"The buy-in matters on the ice and what you do on the ice," Blues coach Craig Berube said. "That’s when the buy-in matters."
The Sharks, who started the season 0-10-1 which included allowing 10 goals in back-to-back games, are actually 2-3-0 in their past five games but have lost two in a row. They're allowing a league-worst 4.44 goals per game and scoring a league-worst 1.31 per game; their goal differential is a staggering minus-51.
"It’s good, man. We’re winning games right now," Blues forward Jakub Vrana said. "The atmosphere on the team is great. It’s good for the team to get a couple wins in a row now, but we have a schedule coming up. We have a long road trip and we’re looking to have a good trip. Whatever happened [Tuesday], it’s behind us already. It’s a lot of fun around, but when the business side comes to it, we’ve got to be ready."
The Blues will take this portion of their schedule into Thanksgiving with back-to-back games Saturday against the Los Angeles Kings and Sunday against the Anaheim Ducks before concluding it Wednesday against the Arizona Coyotes.
"You never want to get too far ahead of it, even right now," Binnington said. "We played a couple good games in a row. It's such a tough league, you've got to stay on top of it every single day. It's got to be our mindset all the time all the way through. Hopefully we're building something special."
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A number of Blues have been on a points heater as of late, and they include:
* Robert Thomas has 11 points (five goals, six assists) in a seven-game point streak.
* Brayden Schenn has nine points (five goals, four assists) his past five games. He is sitting at 599 points and needs just one more for 600 in the NHL.
* Pavel Buchnevich has six points (three goals, three assists) in a three-game point streak and seven points (three goals, four assists) his past five games.
* Krug is on a four-game point streak (one goal, five assists) after having no points the first 10 games of the season.
* Justin Faulk hasn't scored yet this season but has six assists the past six games.
Other notes include:
* The Blues' five straight road wins against San Jose is one shy of matching their longest active road win streak against a single franchise, a six-game win streak in Toronto.
* The Blues have scored a power play goal in five straight games against San Jose, going 6-for-18 (33.3 percent).
* The Blues won all three matchups against the Sharks last season and are on an eight-game winning streak against San Jose.
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The Blues' projected lineup:
Pavel Buchnevich-Robert Thomas-Kasperi Kapanen
Brandon Saad-Brayden Schenn-Jordan Kyrou
Alexey Toropchenko-Kevin Hayes-Jakub Vrana
Sammy Blais-Oskar Sundqvist-Jake Neighbours
Nick Leddy-Colton Parayko
Torey Krug-Justin Faulk
Marco Scandella-Scott Perunovich
Joel Hofer will start in goal; Jordan Binnington will be the backup.
Healthy scratches projected to be Robert Bortuzzo, Tyler Tucker and Nikita Alexandrov. The Blues report no injuries.
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The Sharks' projected lineup:
William Eklund-Tomas Hertl-Fabian Zetterlund
Danil Gushchin-Mikael Granlund-Anthony Duclair
Filip Zadina-Nico Sturm-Luke Kunin
Givani Smith-Ryan Carpenter-Mike Hoffman
Mario Ferraro-Ty Emberson
Calen Addison-Jan Rutta
Nikita Okhotiuk-Kyle Burroughs
Kaapo Kahkonen will start in goal; Mackenzie Blackwood will be the backup.
Healthy scratches include Marc-Edouard Vlasic, Nikolai Knyzhov and Kevin Labanc. Logan Couture (lower body), Alexander Barabanov (finger) and Matt Benning (undisclosed) are out.
